Babies, Santa, and Neurolinguistic Development

Theron
has entered his sixth month of life. The major
new development is that he has acquired his
first teeth – a slow, painful process that
constitutes a major argument against Intelligent
Design all by itself. The first two, the two
front lower teeth, came in on Thanksgiving. Now,
a couple of weeks after that, the top two have
come in. Theron has been fairly even-tempered
for someone with bits of bones trying to cut
their way out through his skin.

This has added another
skill to his repertoire. Not only can he
slobber, spit up, and put things in his mouth;
now he can bite. This has not endeared
him to the Beautiful Woman, who remains one of
his main sources of food.

His other developments
are still unfinished. He hasn’t quite figured
out how to crawl yet, though he can hold his
entire body off the ground using only hands and
toes. He can twist around, reach out, and grab
things with the sort of precision and efficiency
that would put a striking snake to shame. He can
pull himself up so that his knees are under him
and his hands are holding him up.... It looks
like a crawling position, but whenever he tries
to move he goes backwards.

Babies and SantaI
tend to regard the approach of the holidays with
a certain… ‘ambivalence’ might be the mildest
way to describe it. ‘Wariness’ is another good
word. ‘Dread’ and ‘disgust’ have been known to
make an appearance, too.

This will be completely
understandable to anyone who has worked in
retail.

Let me be perfectly
clear that I don’t actually dislike Christmas. I
like my family (and my wife’s family, if you
want to count them separately), and I enjoy
getting together with them. And heaven knows, I
have nothing against receiving presents. I don’t
even mind giving presents, though I sometimes
think it would be simpler if everyone would just
save their money and buy themselves something
that they actually want.

It’s not the holiday
itself: it’s the holiday season. Every
year I watch the average IQ drop by thirty
points, with a corresponding reduction in
people’s driving skills. Patience and courtesy?
Forget it, we have to get things done
before the family arrives! Every year the
advertising turns into a disgusting mixture of
guilt and promise. (“Have you gotten alllllll
the presents you need this year?” “If you really
want to win her heart, you have to buy our
product for her for Christmas. You don’t
want to risk spoiling the holidays for her, do
you?”) Radio stations start playing Christmas
carols as early as November, and never mind that
there are maybe four dozen actual Christmas
carols in existence. I don’t care how many
different bands, singers, and arrangements they
have: they’re still using the same fifty songs
over and over for two solid months.
Television shows aren’t quite as bad, but the
holiday theme is still inescapable – and it
doesn’t take me very long to get tired of it.

This will be Theron’s
First Christmas. He is, to quote
Trout Fishing In America, “zero years old
this year.” Naturally, he has no idea that the
holiday is coming, or what it means. Mainly, it
means that I can’t just sit the season out this
year.

Despite being too young
to retain any conscious memory of the
experience, Theron has been to visit Santa’s
Village. He has had his picture taken with both
Santa and Mrs. Claus. He has braved the crowds
and had Christmas music played at him. In a few
days, I expect to watch him ignore his presents
in favor of the numinous joy of eating wrapping
paper.

Also, given his
propensity for gaining new abilities during
holiday gatherings, I fully expect him to learn
to crawl when we have a house full of people
ready to step on him.

Babies and
Neurolinguistic DevelopmentAs
an English major, I am of course fascinated by
language. I look for skillful ways to use words;
I enjoy seeing new usages and arrangements
develop. Now that we have a baby, I also have
the opportunity to watch language acquisition in
action. Admittedly, my conclusions are wholly
unscientific, but if I’d wanted to make a formal
study I’d have gone into Psychology.

So, from a Liberal Arts
perspective, here are my observations. First, at
six months (and a week), Theron doesn’t appear
to recognize or differentiate individual words.
On the other hand, he is quite capable of
interacting; but he does so by reading
expressions* and by proximity. Second, he can’t
really form words yet. He can make sounds, but
he can only occasionally make them short enough
to qualify as syllables – and even that seems to
be mostly accidental. He still hasn’t developed
any volume control.

I’m forced to conclude
that learning to speak is pain in the [expletive
deleted].

Perhaps more
interesting are the effects on my own use of
language. First of all, I’m losing the ability
to speak Adult. One of my standard greetings to
the baby is “Who’s a boobelly baby?” At first,
such phrases were exclusively used with the
Podling. (These things always start out so
innocently…)

Then, a week ago, I
found myself asking, “Who’s a boobelly… cat?”
Because one of the cats had wandered by and made
eye contact. Apparently I’ve developed a
Pavolovian association between that phrase and,
well, anything even remotely cute. I have, so
far, managed to stop myself – twice –
before asking a similar question of my wife. I
can feel my willpower crumbling; I won’t be able
to hold out forever. Soon I’ll be making
baby-talk noises at complete strangers.

* Funny story here: Two
nights ago we managed to watch Monster House. It
was a fun movie, and I highly recommend it. I
was sitting on the couch, and my wife was
sitting in the Ugly Pink Chair with the baby in
her lap, having just fed him. She had been home
most of the day, so all the remotes were over by
her, on the far side of the chair from me.

Unbeknownst to me,
Theron has reached out to grab the Beautiful
Woman’s cup while she’s attempting to drink from
it. This results in ice water being spilled on
both of them. In order to clean this up, the
Beautiful Woman sets the baby on the floor in
front of the chair.

About five minutes into
the movie, there is a point where the Creepy Old
Man who owns the Obviously Haunted House grabs
the twelve year old kid who is the main
protagonist. Bear in mind that this is an
animated movie. So, Creepy Old Man grabs the kid
and picks him up.

This is the point at
which I become aware that Theron is sitting on
the floor, staring at the TV with rapt
attention. I notice because Theron has just made
a noise, a little “a’ahh” sound indicative of
concern bordering on panic.

Just as I’m about to
ask why the baby is actually facing the
television, the Creepy Old Man suffers something
that looks like a mild heart attack. His face
sort of freezes up, and then he falls towards
the screen.

Theron freaks.
He screeches and immediately starts crying.
While I’m busy staring in disbelief (Why is he
sitting down there? Why hasn’t my wife paused
the movie? Oh my G-d, did he really just figure
out that something bad had happened to the Man
In The Box?) my wife drops the towel and starts
scrambling for the remote. It took us several
minutes and some walking around to get him
calmed down again; the baby was really upset.

I’m guessing he won’t
be watching any horror films until High School,
at the very earliest.